2022-10-31
34 分钟We don't know about you, but we are fans of weekends. And social security. And health insurance. And the end of child labor! And all of these workplace protections exist because of the advocacy of labor unions. In this episode, American political scientist Margaret Levi shares the long history of organizing labor, and explains how unions create equality and protect worker rights. Margaret also discusses her optimism about today’s young workforce and why she believes that an equitable future requires a revival of the labor movement.
Ted audio collective.
You'Re listening to how to be a better human.
I'm your host, Chris Duffy.
Of the many strange things about being a comedian, one of the biggest is how being paid works.
I can perform the exact same jokes and get paid wildly different amounts.
Sometimes I go to a conference and I tell my jokes and I get a very lucrative check.
Other times I tell those same jokes at a bar and they give me two free seltzers.
It's the wild west out there when it comes to joke prices.
So when I got my first tv writing job, I was really surprised to learn that I was now part of a small but powerful union called the Writers Guild of America.
All of a sudden, my work included things like minimum weekly rates, healthcare contributions, a potential pension down the road, and rules about how I could be treated by my bosses.
It was honestly shocking to me, the contrast between how much better I was treated.
All of a sudden, it was night and day.
And also, here's a funny little side note.
When I moved to LA, I talked to one of the labor organizers at the union, and he told me that the zip code that I had moved into has the densest concentration of unionized comedians in the world.
So there are people on all sides of me having a similar revelation right now.
Being in a union and seeing the power and the benefits, it's really changed how I think about organizing and community power, because the only reason that the writers Guild is strong is because the members are willing to stand together and risk losing out on money and work to protect each other, whether you are an established tv writer who is already well into their career, or someone just starting out like me.
So in today's episode, we're going to dive deep into the history, power, and promise of labor organizing.
It's a topic that has been in the news quite a bit lately, but many people still have kind of an outdated idea of what a union is.
And while garments, steel, and autoworkers, they still have powerful labor organizations.
These days, labor also includes education and healthcare, as well as baristas, tech workers, and yes, even comedy writers like me.